Editorial: Putting roofs over our heads
Shelter or housing is one of the three basic necessities of life. Every government and institution have, over the years, tried to provide decent accommodation for their people and employees.
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There is no society anywhere in the world where the phenomenon of homelessness does not exist. Even in the metropolitan capitals of the so-called advanced economies, visitors are greeted with the spectacle of homeless people.
The government of the First Republic put in plans to provide affordable housing for all working people in the country.
Dr Kwame Nkrumah executed estates in many suburbs in the regional capitals to ease the burden on workers to commit a big portion of their salaries to pay rent advance.
Even after the overthrow of the First Republic, successive regimes invested in housing. The Dansoman Estate was one such big investment, considered at the time as the biggest estate in West Africa.
Other interventions were made subsequently but the efforts were not significant enough to reverse the rising deficit in social housing. Some of those interventions bought the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) on board to provide estates in all the regional capitals and selected districts for contributors to the scheme.
A cursory glance at the housing landscape indicates that there is brisk business going on in the sector, with many apartment buildings springing up all over the capital city and the regional capitals.
It is in this vein that the Daily Graphic commends the government for cutting the sod for work to begin on a 5,000 housing project near Ningo-Prampram in the Greater Accra Region.
Performing the ceremony, President John Mahama pledged to support the construction of more houses to provide accommodation for the people and also address the housing deficit of 1.7 million houses.
We are hopeful that this project will not suffer the same fate as others in the past that were launched with pomp and ceremony but never went beyond the sod- cutting ceremony.
A case in point is the STX Housing Project which was heralded with so much fanfare but never took off the ground because of the difficulty in raising the funding and boardroom wranglings.
The Daily Graphic prays that the public officials behind the affordable housing projects will “hit the ground running” to deliver the houses to the people, so that their efforts can reduce the rising deficit in the housing sector.
The inability of the state to provide social housing has left the vulnerable in society in the hands of Shylock landlords and ladies who demand exorbitant rent advances from tenants.
There is no rent control in the system, as the unit charged with that responsibility has become weak and lacks the potency to enforce any regulations in the sector.
As the government takes steps to provide houses for the people, it ought to review the legal framework to make it impossible for landlords to demand outrageous rent advances of three years and in foreign currencies.
A version of this article appears in print on November 7, 2013, on page 07 of the Daily Graphic with the headline: Putting roofs over our head